eBook
Related collections and offers
Overview
After posing as an escort for the Sugar Bowl online dating service, Sela Halstead is looking for one thing: payback. She’s closing in on the site’s heartless founder, Jonathon Townsend, and she needs Beckett North, Townsend’s business partner and her lover, by her side. She’d thought that their intimate nights together had forged an unbreakable bond, but after a shocking betrayal, Sela begins to doubt the brilliant bad boy. When push comes to shove, can she trust Beck to do the right thing?
Now that he understands the truth, Beck will stop at nothing to secure the reckoning Sela deserves. But between his desire for her and his disgust for JT, Beck doesn’t exactly have a lot of control over his emotional state. Left with no other choice, he must summon all his discipline to maintain JT’s trust and pretend that they’re still friends. But how far will Beck go to prove his loyalty to Sela? He nearly lost her once. To keep her, Beck might have to kill for her.
The Arizona Vengeance series from New York Times bestselling author Sawyer Bennett can be read together or separately:
BISHOP
ERIK
LEGEND
And don’t miss her Carolina Cold Fury novels:
ALEX
GARRETT
ZACK
RYKER
HAWKE
MAX
ROMAN
LUCAS
VAN
REED
MAREK
The Love Hurts series features sexy standalone novels:
SEX IN THE STICKS
JILTED
And the Sugar Bowl series is one treat you’ll want to read in order:
SUGAR DADDY
SUGAR RUSH
SUGAR FREE
“One of the best voices in contemporary romance.”—New York Times bestselling author Lauren Layne
Praise for Sugar Rush
“Brilliant and heart-wrenching, with more twists and turns than a hedge maze,Sugar Rush will keep you up until the wee hours of the night.”—New York Times bestselling author Melanie Moreland
“Sugar Daddy hooked me. Sugar Rush left me hungry for more. And Sugar Free can’t get into my hands soon enough! Raw, real, and deliciously sexy, the Sugar Bowl series is a must-read!”—Stacey Kennedy, USA Today bestselling author of the Club Sin series
Includes an excerpt from another Loveswept title.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781101968130 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Random House Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 08/16/2016 |
| Series: | Sugar Bowl Series , #2 |
| Sold by: | Random House |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 224 |
| Sales rank: | 255,963 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
A reformed trial lawyer from North Carolina, Sawyer uses real-life experience to create relatable, sexy stories that appeal to a wide array of readers. From new adult to contemporary romance, she writes something for just about everyone.
Sawyer likes her Bloody Marys strong, her martinis dirty, and her heroes a combination of the two. When not bringing fictional romance to life, Sawyer is a chauffeur, stylist, chef, maid, and personal assistant to a very active daughter, as well as a full-time servant to her adorably naughty dogs. She believes in the good of others and that a bad day can be cured with a great workout, cake, or even better, both.
Sawyer also writes general and women’s fiction under the pen name S. Bennett and sweet romance under the name Juliette Poe.
Read an Excerpt
The minute the door slams shut, blocking Sela and her treacherous, lying eyes, I fall back against it. I immediately slump down to the floor, my legs splayed out in front of me, toes tilted outward, and my hands sit like useless lumps on my thighs.
When I first saw Sela sitting in my office, I was filled with rage such as I’ve never known. It was blistering hot and my ears were buzzing with static as adrenaline pumped like acid in my veins.
I knew.
Immediately knew she had lied to me about needing to take a walk that day after Thanksgiving because she was overwhelmed. I quickly figured out that she had taken my keychain and had a copy made so she could get into my office. It tied together nicely.
How could I have been so stupid? How could I not have seen the duplicity?
How in the heck did I get played so well?
My body went on autopilot, my brain refusing to accept a single word she said, because she’s a proven liar, and I hate liars more than anything. Hate secrets and gray areas and deception and cover-ups. My parents taught me well to hate it, creating such a vile environment for what masqueraded as a family that they unwittingly made a man with no tolerance.
I’m sure lies continued to drip from her mouth even after I caught her. Hell, I’m not even sure what she was saying as I pulled her through the condo; my only concern was getting her out of my life. Rage, fury, bitterness . . . it was all the fuel I needed to push her right out, as I realized that Sela was not only playing with my life, she was playing with my heart.
As I sit here, feeling as if I don’t have a single ounce of strength within me, I realize that as the mania subsides, I’m left with a desolate emptiness. Just minutes ago, I was full of Sela, and now there’s a hollowness surrounded by a bitter husk.
I hear a sound on the other side of the door, and of course I know it’s Sela.
A hoarse bark of a sound . . . a pained sob perhaps? An attempt to get me to feel bad about what I’ve done?
My fingers curl inward, press into my palms, and I have to push hard against the overwhelming need to open that door to comfort her.
I push up off the floor and stalk through the living room, trying to get as far away from the door and the sound of Sela crying. I cross my arms over my stomach, hugging myself almost protectively, and pace back and forth along the floor-to-ceiling window that overlooks the bay.
Something hits the door. A tinny sound, barely noticeable, and my head jerks that way. I take a step in that direction and halt myself.
Turn back around, face the window.
My body tenses, waiting to hear something else. Maybe Sela isn’t done and will start trying to call out to me through the door. Maybe she’ll try to throw more fiction at me, and in fact, maybe that’s why she’s silent right now. Her brain is working up a new web of deceit in which she’ll try to capture me.
I wait and I wait, yet I don’t hear anything else.
Please, Sela . . . say something and make a liar out of my feelings right now.
Dropping my arms, I walk hesitantly to the door and lean so my ear is placed against it. I don’t hear a sound. I put my eye to the peephole, bracing myself to see Sela curled into some pitiful fetal position.
There’s no one in the hallway, although I can’t see all the way down to the elevator. For all I know, Sela’s waiting there, ready to spring out at me.
I think about her last words. Those I do remember.
“JT raped me.”
My teeth gnash over the ludicrousness of that statement. While I haven’t spent every waking minute with Sela, I’ve spent enough time with her to know that couldn’t have occurred. Not only was there very little opportunity, but I think I’d damn well know if something horrific like that had happened to my girlfriend.
I know what rape does to a woman. I’ve seen it.
Hell, I’ve felt it. I’ve felt a woman sobbing and shuddering in my arms, sunk in despair and pain after she was brutalized. JT is a shit, an abuser of women, and I’m not sure to what lengths he’d go anymore. But there’s no way JT raped Sela in the past several weeks we’ve been together. I would have absolutely known something was wrong. You can’t hide something like that.
You can’t.
I know the only fix is time, and that’s not even a complete fix. A rape victim needs time and support and assurance. She needs love and the ability to work through the shame and humiliation. That shit doesn’t happen in days. It doesn’t happen in months.
It f***ing happens in years.
And all of a sudden, something strikes out at me with such force and detailed clarity that I actually stagger back from the door a bit.
It’s a memory of Sela on the first night we met.
Sitting on a barstool and staring across the room at JT.
With anger.
I remember seeing it clearly on her face, and thinking it was odd that she’d be staring at him that way. I had assumed that night was the first time Sela had met JT, and that’s why it was so weird that she’d be looking at him that way.
Unless that wasn’t the first time they met.
“JT raped me.”
She didn’t say when, did she?
My mind races as I try to recall the last ten minutes of my life and I can’t pull forth anything. I can only remember her looking up at me, arm outstretched, as she said, JT raped me.
I assumed she meant since she and I had started up together. I assumed she was lying and inferring JT had done something nefarious, knowing my relationship with him has been strained and hoping I’d take her side over his. I immediately discounted her proclamation because I know what rape is, and there’s no way in hell that could have happened since we met.
But what if he raped her long before she and I ever met? What if she was at that Sugar Bowl Mixer that night with the intent to confront her attacker?
That first night we were together. Sela’s juices on my mouth and her neck and chest flushed red from orgasm.
“That was the first time a man has made me have an orgasm.”
Sela had not been able to orgasm with a man before.
It had seemed impossible to me then, knowing a beautiful, sexy, and vibrant woman like Sela couldn’t attract a man who would bend over backward to make her come. No one could take one look at Sela lying on a bed, legs spread and eyes full of uncertainty but with a tinge of hope, and not do everything in his power to make her come until she’s screaming his name out to the heavens.
A woman not achieving climax with a man.
That’s a serious sexual hang-up.
One that could be caused by being raped.
Everything hits me at once. I’m practically blinded by images and memories of the last few weeks, all little details that I can now piece together.
Sela’s not your typical Sugar Baby. It’s a ruse to get close to JT.
Sela’s naïve when it comes to sex.
The aloof nature with which she held herself away from me. The moments of uncertainty I saw on her face when we were intimate.
That absolute antipathy she had for JT the few times they’ve been in the same room together.
The fact I’ve come to see that JT has the potential to really harm a woman.
“I swear to God, Beck . . . this is about JT,” she had cried out to me as I dragged her out of my condo.
Sela was raped by JT before we even met.
The absolute truth of that hits me square in the center of my chest with the force of a wrecking ball.
“Ugh,” I groan painfully as I lunge for the door, absolutely sickened by what I’ve just done.
I jerk it open, my eyes immediately going to the array of items that I vaguely remember flying out of Sela’s purse when I kicked it through the door. My head jerks to the right, toward the elevators, but she’s gone. Her purse is gone, and she’s gone, but she left behind all that stuff that spilled out. My gaze drops down farther and I see the condo key with the blue rubber cover on the head of it.
It’s like a kick to my nuts seeing it lying at my feet.
“No, no, no, no,” I chant in agony as I squat to pick up the key. “Not you, Sela. This could not have happened to you. Not to my Sela.”
I don’t want to believe it because I literally don’t think I can stand to know Sela suffered that way. I don’t want to believe it because it makes me a monster for what I just did to her.
I stand up and pull my phone out of my pocket, quickly choosing Sela’s number at the top of my favorites list. On the second ring, I note that I can faintly hear a corresponding sound coming from the bedroom.
“Shit,” I mutter, and run back to our bedroom, where I see her phone lying on the nightstand beside the bed. I disconnect and look wildly about the room, trying to figure out what to do.
A quick glance down at my watch and I note that Sela couldn’t have been gone for more than five minutes, ten at the most. She could still be down at the next BART stop, waiting for public transit to whisk her away from me.
I snatch Sela’s phone from the nightstand and sprint for the front door. I pat my front pocket, relieved to feel my car key in there should I need it, and practically careen off the doorjamb as I try to cut into the hallway. I grab the knob and pull it shut hard behind me, not even stopping to lock up.
I have to catch Sela before she can get away.
Someone above is looking out for me because the elevator shows up within seconds. I jump in, jab the lobby button, and urge it to go faster. I start throwing up prayers to whoever may be listening to let me make this right with her. I’m so ashamed of the way I threw her out of my life, and how easily I discounted her claim of rape. It may be the worst mistake I’ve ever made, and I hope to God I can fix it.
When the elevator stops and the doors slide open with a soft whoosh, I bolt out and then turn left and dash for the front doors. I practically run over John, our doorman, and apologize to him as I hit the sidewalk.
The BART stop is one block down and half a block over, and luckily the sidewalks are fairly empty. It’s past the morning rush hour but it hasn’t hit lunchtime yet. I race around the corner of Mission and Fremont at a Mach 1 sprint, and my eyes immediately go to the bench in front of the bus stop. There’s only two people there waiting, and neither of them are Sela.
My chest heaving for air, I look both ways down the street, desperately hoping to catch a glimpse of her. I squint, peer hard . . . willing her to appear.
God . . . I can’t even remember what she was wearing. Totally useless.
Related Subjects
Customer Reviews
Explore More Items
